General Bitching

I looked and didn't see a thread like this, so I'm making one. Hopefully if the mods don't shut it down, you can all join me in this Anger Management class. Any stuff that pisses you off and you need to bitch about, whack it here.

-x-

So my Dad has an incredibly annoying habit of buying Christmas presents himself and then letting other people give them to him. He reasons that this means he definitely gets things that he wants, and other people don't have to worry about what to get him.

You can probably see where this is going.

Yep, I discovered today that the two main presents I got him, a pair of DVDs, are ones he's already bought for himself. I am so angry at the man I could just scream. And did (thankfully the house was empty or my mother would have had serious words at me).

All I've got left to give him are a few 'jokey' presents. And a mug. Woo. Almost tempted to keep them all for myself and just get him some coal, the git.

Almost all of the Star Wars EU is garbage. The post trilogy books were good for a while. The Thrawn trilogy was very good, the Jedi Academy trilogy was good, the books stayed interesting all the way up through Centerpoint Station.

But here's the problem: They ran out of stories. The only thing the writers could figure out to do was how to make the books more military and more serious, forgetting all of the spaghetti western elements that made the movies light hearted while also dealing with serious topics. The only way they knew how to deal with Luke's character was to perpetually torture him by making him lose people he loved. Meanwhile, reuse of imperial super weapons and the killing off of beloved characters were cheap ways to make the stories seems like there was threat, but almost all of the authors forgot that just adding bigger and badder doesn't equate to a bigger stake for the reader.

The post trilogy is almost all garbage but then again so is the stuff they put into games like Force Unleashed.

Although I'll concede that Shadows of the Empire was an interesting concept.

LOL!! I was just coming on here to post a rant, cuz you guys always give great advice!

-SNIPPED TO SAVE SPACE, SEE ORIGINAL POST FOR SITUATION-

best yet, it's 2 days before christmas, and I'll be hanging out with him and his family christmas eve...

has anyone else had a problem like this?

If you're seeing him tomorrow, it might be worth just having a quiet word with him if you can. Just say you miss hanging out with him and, if you can, you'd like to do it again sometime. Try not to put too much pressure on him, just say it'd be nice to catch up and stuff.

Also, it's definitely worth offering to help out with the baby. I'm sure he'll happily take any help he can get there, and it could be a good way to help the two of you reconnect, so to speak.

I hate people who get offended by "Merry Christmas", but I equally hate people like Bill O'Reilly who try to force people to celebrate one holiday and act like they're being discriminated against. "Happy Holidays" is made to wish people a happy whatever they celebrate, it wasn't made to push secularism the war on Christmas doesn't fucking exist. However people can say "Merry Christmas" as much as they damn well please. How does that offend you? They're not forcing you to celebrate it. The point of this is to be nice and wish good for someone, not to piss people off for no reason. I'm not Jewish, but if someone wished me a "Happy Hanukkah", not only would I not get angry, I would thank them.

If you're seeing him tomorrow, it might be worth just having a quiet word with him if you can. Just say you miss hanging out with him and, if you can, you'd like to do it again sometime. Try not to put too much pressure on him, just say it'd be nice to catch up and stuff.

Also, it's definitely worth offering to help out with the baby. I'm sure he'll happily take any help he can get there, and it could be a good way to help the two of you reconnect, so to speak.

Hope that helps!

I've had this talk a gazillion times with him... every time he promises to do better, and every time he fails... the problem is, my scedule is pretty flexable, his is not, so I need him to check his scedule and he never does, even though I keep reminding him...

also the helping with the baby thing won't work because they both have LARGE families, so the families get priority time with the babies while me and my mom (who is like a 2nd mother to my friend) get left in the dust...

Well, when you get married and have a kid, that does kind of limit spending hours at a time with other friends. I think you're just going to have to downgrade him to occasional buddy and find someone else. Or get married and have a kid to see what it's like.

Well, when you get married and have a kid, that does kind of limit spending hours at a time with other friends. I think you're just going to have to downgrade him to occasional buddy and find someone else. Or get married and have a kid to see what it's like.

I know that it's a time sink... but I know a lot of people who manage to have families and also balance their friends into the mix... his wife manages to hang out with her friends, and she works part time AND takes care of the kid, all I ask is, say, doing lunch with him once a month, or maybe getting invited over to play video games with him some evening... I know we'll never hang like we used to, but I definately don't like being ignored...

Heck, I'm a full time college student, studying in a medical field... and I would manage to find the time to hang out with him if he would only be receptive to it...

Dumpling, quick statistic. Men, more than women, tend to isolate and focus on their partner after marriage. Men's psychological makeup is geared toward individual tasks versus multitasking. Look at any men's magazine versus women's magazine to realize that. This is also why men deal worse with spouse death, since they lose social supports (friends) that women maintain.

You're asking for something that is beyond most men, speaking strictly from the perspective of psychology and statistics.

I don't know about that. My dad is pretty damn social, far more so than me. Though then again, whenever he meets up with friends, it's generally to do something specific, not just "hang out".

Dumpling, I'd suggest that maybe you should get in touch with your friend's wife and schedule an activity with the whole family. That way, he can't ignore you and you can hang out within the activity. Like invite them all out to lunch or something.